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Last week the temporary pop up greenhouse finally surrendered to the elements. It was intended to be temporary but it stood for over 18 months and held fast during storms, heavy rains and snow. Not bad for a plastic Lidl number. It had become a look out post for pigeons and housed a variety of life including slugs, snails, spiders and mice. The mice had taken it upon themselves to leave tidy piles of empty sunflower seed husks inside after jumping on the opportunity to snaffle seeds that had dropped from the bird feeders. Like little piles of licked clean plates, purposely left for the waiters of restaurant Chez WytchWood to take away.
With the greenhouse being unable to withstand another Winter, it needed dismantling - the ripped outer cover, the rusty inner skeleton - and with this came emptying out what seemed like never ending towers of plastic plant pots. While I'm an environmentally conscious gardener, reusing everything that possibly can be used, I have a tendency to be an 'untidy' gardener. I would rather spend my time planning, designing, planting, tending and harvesting than cleaning and tidying. I'm adept at pulling weeds out and leaving them in a pile. I'm a professional at wiping my hands, tools and everything else on my dungarees. I pick twigs and beasties from my tangled hair and, at the day's end, leaves from my cleavage.
My tendency to get excited at planting new plants and chucking the empty pots in a pile in a forgotten corner of the greenhouse results in pots covered in slime and slug eggs and last week I was forced to confront months worth of garden housekeeping neglect. With rolled up sleeves, vinegar, sponges and foaming hot water at the ready, I took a deep breath and decided to dive in.
I can tell you that cumulative slug slime is not the pretty silvery trails that we see on paths of a dewy morning - it's more like something that wouldn't be out of place at an exorcism. Think Ghostbusters ectoplasm. Gelatinous, thick, stubborn, clingy. I have a strong stomach for most things but after washing slime, slug eggs and strange smells out of a stockpile of pots, I was getting flashes of cold sweats and nausea. At this point I thought to take some photos for my Instagram accounts for Flourish and WytchWood. This is not typical Insta fodder, I grant you. It will not come as news to you but social media is not reflective of life. While our minds may interpret the images as reality, and there may be elements of reality within them, they are a projection of many things. This was one of the reasons I thought to photograph and post, a reality check. I didn't. Insta isn't for giant slugs with snake like markings clinging to smelly pots. That's reality. That's the muck and dirt, musk and odours, the husks and empty shells, the ferality of life.
I am wildness. There is a very large part of me that has never, and will never, acclimatise to a 'civilised' life; I will never fully submit. This has been present in me ever since I was a toddler, when I was told off for 'watering' the buttons on the couch with my sippy cup, pretending they were flowers. Some things don't change. It's one of the reasons I'm suited to doing what I do. I'm at home walking with wild things in many different worlds. I want to be part of the wildness, not control it. I want to be where all things can be what they are. But as with everything in this life, including gardening, there has to be an element of discipline.
Gardening is a discipline. Essentially it us humans expressing our imagination and desires by exerting control over our environment. We can only achieve and enjoy those glorious moments of our creativity come to fruition - when we feel enveloped by the colours, scents, abundances and rich array of life within our lives - when we do the housekeeping. We need to cleanse the clinging energy of the neglected parts of us, bringing out that which we have piled up in shadowy corners and allowed other things to take over. Give them air, give them light, a new lease of life. It may make you feel queasy. It may make you feel shame. Resist the urge to criticise yourself harshly for neglecting those parts of you because you are dealing with them now. There will always be dark, stagnant corners for you to clean out - it is lifelong work and there will always be housekeeping. But when the time comes to grow something new, you will have a lovingly tended, re-energised, re-purposed vessel in which to sow it in.
Copyright © Andrea Doran, Flourish and contributors 2021. All rights reserved. Date of original post 24th August 2021.